Decolonisation, Indigenous health research and Indigenous authorship: sharing our teams’ principles and practices

Abstract

The authorship order for this article was led by and decided by Pat Dudgeon and Helen Milroy, based on work conducted within and reported by the team. Before that decision, each team member was provided an opportunity to write a summary of their contributions to the article, as well as recognise other authors’ roles and responsibilities in the process. The authors’ contributions, as per the CRediT for this article are as follows, noting that only the relevant roles from CRediT are included: Conceptualisation: Pat Dudgeon (PD) and Helen Milroy (HM) provided leadership for the development and application of Indigenous authorship principles, including holding space for conversations and activities to support the learning within the team. The remaining authors learn, practice and support the application of Indigenous authorship principles. Chontel Gibson (CG) and Shraddha Kashyap (SK) led the conceptualisation of the article in consultation with the remaining authors. Methodology: CG led the methodological approach to design and write the article. HM and PD provided leadership and advice. Supervision: CG and SK provided everyday supervision and guidance to draft the article. PD and HM provided strategic oversight. Project administration: CG and SK led the administration aspects of this article, including discussions and development. Writing – original draft: led by CG and SK with strategic oversight by PD and HM. Various support provided by the remaining authors. Writing – reviewing and editing: led by CG, Ashleigh Wright, Jemma Rose Collova and Rama Agung-Igusti, with strategic advice, and review by PD and HM. Various support provided by the remaining authors.

Indigenous relationality is a shared principle that is practiced by Indigenous peoples across the world.^{1, 2} It requires people to share cultural connections, along with intentions. In this article, we illustrate our positionality by using a similar approach to Bullen and colleagues.³

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ knowledges and practices are grounded in the principles of relationality, which are foundational for flourishing communities.³ The historical and contemporary legacies of colonisation remain in everyday practices. These colonial legacies are a product of and result in racism, whereby there are deliberate attempts and/or everyday practices that destroy Indigenous Knowledges, such as languages, principles of relationality and cultural practices.^{12, 13} Western research paradigms, which are grounded in colonial ideology, have played a significant role in that destruction. Western researchers, the academy and disciplines produced within the academy, are contexts that position non-Indigenous people, along with their processes and systems, as being the “knower” of Indigenous peoples, including Indigenous Knowledges. Within these same colonial research systems, Indigenous peoples are viewed as objects to be known, and Indigenous Knowledges as a commodity that is extracted, devalued and rearticulated through a Western lens, for the benefits of Western communities.¹³ Despite that context, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples continue to resist, advocate and lead solutions that maintain, restore or rebuild Indigenous Knowledges.^13-16 Self-determination and self-governance are central to Indigenous peoples’ resistance, advocacy and leadership. They are also central for Indigenous protection, production, ownership and dissemination of Indigenous Knowledges.^{1, 12, 13, 17} One of many key examples where Indigenous peoples led the Indigenous rights movements, including self-determination for Indigenous Knowledges and practices, was via the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and then the Community Guide for the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (Community Guide).^{11, 18} UNDRIP recognises and respects Indigenous peoples’ individual and collective rights to “maintain, control, protect, and develop” their knowledge systems along with “intellectual property over such cultural heritage, traditional knowledge, and traditional cultural expressions”.¹¹ The rights asserted in the UNDRIP are fundamental and foundational in the process to transform colonial institutions, including the academy. The Community Guide is a comprehensive illustration of how the UNDRIP can be implemented with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.¹⁸ Epistemic justice, which is the recognition that Indigenous peoples (and all people) hold important knowledge, is central in any Indigenous rights-based approaches.¹⁹ Indigenous human rights not only recognise that Indigenous peoples hold important knowledges but assert that Indigenous people are the rightful owners, who should maintain leadership, governance and connections with Indigenous Knowledges.^{17, 18}

Colonisation stems from, as well as perpetuates racial imbalances of knowledge, knowledge production and knowledge practice. Decolonisation and decoloniality are a few of many tools used in attempts to dismantle, hinder, reverse, stop or remove colonising practices, with the aim of privileging the rights of Indigenous people.^{13, 20-22} We acknowledge the various, and sometimes conflicting conceptualisations and applications of decolonising and decolonial practices. These conflicts are influenced by place, people and socio-political contexts, including the lack of transformative actions that should be of benefit to Indigenous peoples.^{21, 23-26} Three key features, of the many, relating to decolonial and decolonising practices that we implement in our team are described below.

To engage with Indigenous health research, one must first understand that diverse Indigenous Knowledges exist. For this article, we view Indigenous Knowledges as including cultural knowledges (both past and present), Indigenous peoples’ lived experiences, and finally, new knowledges that may sometimes combine both Western and Indigenous Knowledges. We acknowledge the diversity of lived experiences and use a variety of innovative conceptual tools that are reflective of and built on Indigenous Knowledges, such as Milroy's Dance of Life, and Gee and colleagues’ SEWB model, which underpin our work.^{28, 29} Indigenous Knowledges are reflected in the holistic approaches to health, wellbeing and life. Holistic approaches encompass multiple knowledges relating to culture, spirituality, social and health, all of which are founded in Country and Lore — stories, sciences and practices.^{30, 31} Yunkaporta, as cited in Zubrzycki and colleagues³² provides a range of cultural protocols for engaging with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledge. Examples of cultural protocols include using cultural processes, such as yarning, stories and art, to engage with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledge; understanding one's positioning; settling one's own fears and discomfort, and finally, ensuring that any use of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledges benefits Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.³²

Cultural protocols also exist within research processes. Aboriginal Participatory Action Research (APAR) illustrates cultural protocols used within research relating to social and emotional wellbeing. APAR values Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ knowledges.²⁰ It provides a decolonising and rights-based Indigenous research methodology. The main elements of APAR centre on localised knowledge generation and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as co-researchers; Indigenous peoples as experts-by-experience of their own health, families and communities; Indigenous leadership and governance, research translation and dissemination tailored by and for local communities; application of Indigenous ethical practices and finally, implementation of Swann and Raphael's nine guiding principles that underpin SEWB.²⁰

Smith observes that the past two decades resulted in rapid growth of Indigenous research.¹³ Similarly, a SEWB literature review revealed a large volume of research that was led and governed by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples (unpublished data). The expansion of Indigenous research illustrates how Indigenous peoples’ knowledges and practices can transcend and enact Indigenous human rights within the academy. Despite Indigenous Knowledges transcending the academy, Smith maintains that Western disciplines and institutions continue to have difficulty acknowledging the contributions of Indigenous Knowledges.¹³ The lack of acknowledgement can be demonstrated in Western disciplines and researchers’ patterns of citation that often exclude or undervalue racialised academics.³³ The lack of Indigenous Knowledges can also be demonstrated in challenges such as the limited amount of Indigenous content taught in education programs; the limited numbers of identified Indigenous positions in the academy and limited access to culturally safe institutions (eg, university programs and health services), which deters Indigenous peoples’ use of the institutions, as consumers, staff, students etc.^{8, 21, 34, 35} These problems result from and in, what Emery-Whittington refers to as the ongoing transmission of colonial oppression.³⁶ We acknowledge that efforts have been made to mitigate transmissions of colonial oppression.²¹ For example, while Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social and emotional wellbeing has been implemented by many Aboriginal community-controlled organisations, the uptake in mainstream health organisations is not as apparent (unpublished data).

Indigenous peoples are the rightful owners of Indigenous Knowledges, and in the research process, Indigenous authorship is one mechanism to enact that right. Indigenous publishers have long advocated for Indigenous authorship. For example, the Guidelines for the ethical publishing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander authors and research from those communities illustrate the problems with copyright laws in Australia, in that they grant ownership to the person who writes down the Indigenous Knowledge, rather than the rightful owner of the Indigenous Knowledge.³⁷ Janke³⁸ reinforces how copyright laws and intellectual property rules privilege non-Indigenous people, who often benefit from the laws and rules, especially when it relates to Indigenous peoples. Journals are becoming increasingly aware of their responsibilities to promote Indigenous authorship in the publication process.^{39, 40}

Scholarly articles are now revealing guidelines, tools and checklists to support the process of Indigenous authorship. For example, Kennedy and colleagues illustrate the importance of Indigenous authorship, emphasising the merit of positioning Indigenous authors as first and last in the authorship order, when using an Indigenous method/methodology.⁴¹ CAVAL and the Indigenous Archives Collective guidelines, along with its Indigenous Knowledge Attribution Toolkit, were designed for undergraduate students.⁴² These resources aim to support students to choose references that are strength-based and inclusive of Indigenous leadership, including Indigenous authorship.⁴² CAVAL and the Indigenous Archives Collective also provide a process for acknowledging authors’ cultural connections within texts of publications and in the reference list.⁴²

The Australia state of environment report released a guideline and strategy that committed to Indigenous co-authorship, reflecting the importance of and inclusion of Indigenous Knowledges.⁴³ Finally, Indigenous data sovereignty has grown momentum in the past five years, and rightly so, given that Indigenous data, and therefore Indigenous Knowledges, are best left in the hands of Indigenous peoples who are connected to that knowledge, such as local communities and professional communities.¹⁷ Indigenous data sovereignty principles, to some extent, are embedded in the new Framework for Governance of Indigenous Data.^{44, 45} Indeed, all previously mentioned frameworks provide examples on how to enact and/or assert UNDRIP's Article 31 in relation to Indigenous peoples having “the right to maintain, control, protect and develop their intellectual property over such cultural heritage, traditional knowledge, and traditional cultural expressions”.¹¹

Our principles in relation to sharing Indigenous Knowledges and centring Indigenous authorship have long been practised. Although our principles remain constant over time and within projects, our practices tend to evolve and/or change to reflect cultural protocols. For this article, we refined our principles and provided an example of how we practise each principle. We encourage readers to honour place-based knowledge, and this will involve working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who are key stakeholders in research, to understand the best principles and actions relevant to each specific context. Our principles and practices are as follows.

Indigenous peoples, both in and out of the academy are advocating and leading Indigenous rights initiatives. As a result, Indigenous researchers, Indigenous research and Indigenous Knowledges are on the incline in the academy. Despite that rise, epistemic injustices are still apparent in the academy, including the health and health-related disciplines’ knowledge and practices, which are produced within the academy. Our team has developed nine principles to guide Indigenous authorship, and these principles are underpinned by and support Indigenous peoples’ rights, including epistemic justice, specifically as it relates to Indigenous authorship. We appreciate that our perspective article shares some of our practices, which have and will continue to evolve over time. We encourage other research teams who work with Indigenous people and knowledges, to share their principles and practices relating to epistemic justice. We appreciate that epistemic justice is a relatively new practice for non-Indigenous researchers, and as such, making the time and taking the lead from Indigenous key stakeholders about principles, practices and implementation strategies are necessary.

No relevant disclosures.

Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.